Support: AVChat Documentation

vldPersonals

The AVChat Extension for vldPersonals handles the integration between your vldPersonals web site and our AVChat software. Here's what it will do:

  • user name integration
  • profile url integration
  • profile image integration
  • placement of video chat within the web site (user and admin interface)
  • allows for different features for different vldPersonals member groups (by manually editing an external .php file).

If you cannot find the answer you’re looking for here, we encourage you to try our FAQ or forums. There's also more documentation regarding AVChat in the documentation area for the main standalone version.

All the specific documentation regarding vldPersonals is on this page so if you're looking for something specific just hit Ctrl+F on your browser.

Here are the vldPersonals related topics we will cover on this page:

1. Installing the AVChat Extension for vldPersonals

First you have to download 2 archives from the client/trial area on avchathq.com to your computer. These 2 archives are:

  • AVChat 3.0.zip (contains media server files for Red5/FMIS/Wowza and AVChat Standalone)
  • avchat3_vldpersonals25x_extension.zip (contains the integration files for vldPersonals)

Extract the 2 archives somewhere on your computer to have all the files handy! We will use files from both archives!

After installation, the first time you will log in the video chat you will be asked or a license key, it's in your client/trial area.

1.1 Setting up the avchat30 application on the media server

First you need to install the avchat30 app on your media server. If you don't know what a media server is check out the requirements. If you already have a media server (Red5, FMIS, FMIS hosting, Wowza) here's what you need to do:

Red5 installed on a
dedicated or VPS server		 Wowza
installed on a
dedicated or VPS server

1. Upload the avchat30 folder from the AVChat 3.0.zip/Files to upload to your media server (Red5 0.8) folder to the webapps folder of your Red5 0.8 installation (C:\Program Files\Red5\webapps on Win, /opt/red5/webapps/ on Linux).

2. Linux only: Chmod the new avchat30 folder to 777.

3. Restart the Red5 server

You're done, move to Part 1.2 below

1. Upload the applications, lib and conf folders from the AVChat 3.0.zip/Files to upload to your media server (Wowza) folder to the root folder of your Wowza Media Server installation (C:\Program Files\Wowza Media Systems\Wowza Media Server Pro 1.7.2\ on Windows).

2. Restart the Wowza server

You're done, move to Part 1.2 below
FMIS
installed on a
dedicated or VPS server		 FMIS
hosting from
http://influxis.com

1. Upload the avchat30 folder from the AVChat 3.0.zip/Files to upload to your media server (FMS) folder to the applications folder of your FMIS installation (C:\Program Files\Macromedia\Flash Media Server\applications on Windows, /opt/macromedia/fms/applications/ on Linux).

2. Linux only: Chmod the new avchat30 folder to 777.

You're done, move to Part 1.2 below

While logged in your Influxis.com account:

1) Go to File Manager:
2) Click the root folder
3) Click the folder icon at the top labeed New Folder
4) Give the new folder the name avchat30 and click OK
5) click the avchat30 folder in the list to the left
6) At the top click the red arrow labeled Upload
7) In the empty list that shows up add main.ase, settings.asc and Application.xml from the AVChat 3.0.zip\Files to upload to your media server (FMS)
8) Cick Upload

Done.

Your connection string used in Part 2 will look like: rtmp://123.rtmphost.com/avchat30/_definst_ where 123.rtmphost.com is shown at the top of your Influxis.com account.

Now that we've got that out of the way, let's move on to installing the AVChat Extension on vldPersonals.

1.2 Installing the actual AVChat Extension for vldPersonals

  1. Login via FTP to your web site and copy the chat and includes folders from the avchat3_vldpersonals25x_extension.zip archive to your web site's root folder
  2. Copy templates/ext.avchat3.tpl file from the avchat3_vldpersonals25x_extension.zip archive to your templates/[YOUR_CURRENT_TEMPLATE_FOLDER]
  3. Open [your site root]/chat/avc_settings.php in a text editor and set the value of
    $avconfig['connectionstring']     like this:
    $avconfig['connectionstring']='rtmp://myFMSserver.com/avchat30/_definst_';
    where myFMSserver.com is the domain name or ip of the server where your media server is installed.
  4. CHMOD the [your site root]/chat/uploadedFiles folder to 777 (otherwise the upload function might not work)
  5. Create a new folder tokens ( [your site root]/chat/tokens) and CHMOD it to 777 (otherwise we might have token generation issues later on)
  6. To add the Who's Chatting Block edit [your site root]/templates/[your template]/homepage.tpl (in our case, the template is the default one, webby2) and after:

    <div class="block blogs">
    {blogs:limit=5,cache_time=0}
    </div>
    <div class="clear"></div>

    add these lines:

    <h3>Users in video chat</h3>
    <div class="block">
    {avchat3:}
    </div>
  7. Edit [your site root]/includes/cp.php and add these code lines:
    case 'avchat3':
    $TEMPLATE->assign("active_module", "avchat3");
    include SYS_PATH . 'includes/cp/cp.avchat3.php';
    break;

    you can place the lines at the bottom of the script/page right before these lines:
    default:
    $TEMPLATE->assign("active_module", "members");
    include SYS_PATH . 'includes/cp/cp.dashboard.php';
    break;
  8. OPTIONAL STEP Adding a link to open the chat in the top menu (a link is already on the homepage).
    Open [your site root]/templates/[your template]/header.tpl (in our case, the template is the default one, webby2)

    and after:
    <!-- IF settings.enable_picture_rating -->
    <li>{anchor:url1="hotornot/",url2="index.php?m=hotornot",name="core|menu_rate"}</li><!-- ENDIF -->
    add this line:
    <li><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="window.open('{top.virtual_path}chat','FlashVideoChat', 'status=0,width=980,height=500')" title="Enter chat rooms">Enter chat rooms</a></li>
  9. Now lets add a link in the admin area. Open [your site root]/includes/templates/header.tpl (this is the header template for the admin area of vldPersonals) in a text editor and after this line:
    <td class="menuRow1_{ifelse:active_module,"settings","settings","general"}" nowrap><a class="menuRow1" href="{virtual_cp_path}index.php?m=settings">{lang:"core","menu_settings"}</a></td>
    add the following line of code:

    <td class="menuRow1_{ifelse:active_module,"avchat3","settings","general"}" nowrap><a class="menuRow1" href="{virtual_cp_path}index.php?m=avchat3">FlashVideoChatAdmin</a></td>

2. Accessing the AVChat admin interface in vldPersonals

...

3. Location of AVChat files in a vldPersonals installation

All the AVChat Standalone files including language files, audio/video quality profile files, avc_settings.php and, well, everything else are on your vldPersonals web site in:

[your site root]/chat/

In there you will also find some special integration files like integration.php, these contain all the logic behind the integration! How they work is that they modify the default values in avc_settings.php depending on the logged in user/browser requesting them.

4. Opening up the video chat in a pop up

...

5. Placing ads around the video chat

Bummer, we're still writing this one...

6. vldPersonals's member groups and AVChat

vldPersonals ships with 6 member groups: Admins, Regulars, Paid members, Guests, Pending and Canceled members.

On vldPersonals to set up different features/limits for each members group you will need to have a little bit of php knowledge. Login via FTP to your web site and take a look at this file: [your site root]/chat/integration.php .

Starting with line 89 you will see this code:

if ($member_group_id == 1){
//Admins
$avconfig['freeVideoTime'] = -1;
}else if($member_group_id == 2){
//Regular members
$avconfig['freeVideoTime'] = 3200;
}else if($member_group_id == 3) {
//Guests
$avconfig['freeVideoTime'] = 1600;
}else if($member_group_id == 5) {
//Paid members
$avconfig['freeVideoTime'] = 19200;
}

You can add in there every feature/limit setting available in [your site root]/chat/avc_settings.php independently for each member group!

By default the free video time/day is limited for Regular, Guest and Paid members.

7. Allowing guests (visitors) to join the video chat

By default the AVChat Extension for vldPersonals does not allow visitors of your web site to enter the video chat. Only signed in users are allowed in the video chat.

To allow visitors/guests to join the video chat login via FTP to your web site and edit at this file: [your site root]/chat/integration.php.

At the end of the file set $avconfig['showLoginError']=0;

Save the file and upload it back to your web site.

 

8. Changing the looks of AVChat to better fit your vldPersonals web site

Changing the design of AVChat is explained in detail in the documentation for the standalone version.

When working with the vldPersonals Extension keep in mind that AVChat is installed in [your site root]/chat/ so all the files you need to edit (like style.css for fonts and colors, avc_settings.php for the background image,) are there.

Also the HTML code used to embed the video chat throughout is in :
[your site root]/chat/index.php (and [your site root]/chat/admin.php for the admin interface) so if you want to change the size of the video chat in the html page (or the size of the popup window) or the background color this is the file you need to edit.